Closeout chance at hand for Bruins thanks to better play on 'D'

The Bruins like where this series is trending, though. They've won the past two games after falling behind 2-1.

Comment

By Dan CagenDaily News staff

The Herald News, Fall River, MA

By Dan CagenDaily News staff

Posted May. 11, 2014 at 5:47 PM
Updated May 11, 2014 at 10:17 PM

By Dan CagenDaily News staff

Posted May. 11, 2014 at 5:47 PM
Updated May 11, 2014 at 10:17 PM

» Social News

BOSTON — The history books say that Game 6 will be the toughest one for the Bruins.

Up 3-2 with a chance to close out the opponent in its own barn? Based on the B's reputation, the TD Garden concessionaires can begin preparing the nachos for Game 7 on Wednesday night.

"It's going to be a tough one," Bruins coach Claude Julien said Sunday afternoon, shortly before he and his team boarded a plane to Montreal for Monday night's sixth game in the second-round series. "I think, again, you have to rely on our experience and knowing that we haven't won this series yet. We have to bring our best game next game because they will."

For whatever it's worth, this has been one of the few situations where Julien's teams have had no success during his Spoked-B tenure. The Bruins are 0-4 in Julien's seven seasons when they have a chance to land the knockout punch in a road Game 6, most recently in the first round at Toronto last season.

The Bruins like where this series is trending, though. They've won the past two games after falling behind 2-1. The top line is coming on, while Montreal's biggest scorers — Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais and Thomas Vanek — have all gone and stayed down the rabbit hole at the same time. The Bruins finally had significant lead time in Game 5, quadrupling the meager 11:39 of time spent ahead in the first four games.

Boston has also eliminated those pesky breakaways that were so costly in Game 3. P.K. Subban and Dale Weise scored when they got in alone on Tuukka Rask in that 4-2 Montreal win last Tuesday. Pucks were turned over by the Bruins in the wrong areas and the defensemen weren't aware of what was behind them.

Those errors were corrected in Games 4 and 5. Only Desharnais' semi-breakaway in Game 5 qualified as a standalone look against Rask on Saturday night.

"We just played the way we should be playing," Johnny Boychuk said. "Before we were trying to do things that were uncharacteristic and we knew that. We have to play our game in order for us to succeed or have a chance to win."

Montreal hasn't scored a 5-on-5 goal since the second period of Game 3, working on a stretch of 147:27. The last three Habs goals have come on an empty net, a power play and a 6-on-4 power play. Rask was critical of his play early on, but he's found his form again.

That's largely due to the Bruins locking down on the little things, the phrase general manager Peter Chiarelli used when the Bruins were trailing 2-1 in the series. In the past two games, they've played a Bruin-like game.

After Game 3, the coaching staff talked to the players about being smarter with the puck, putting it down low and keeping it out of dangerous areas. Defensemen were instructed to be aware of forwards leaking out.

Page 2 of 2 - "If you turn the puck over just inside the blue line, that creates danger for them making a quick pass up for those guys because they always have a guy low in the (defensive) zone," Julien said. "So if you put pucks in the right areas it helps, but our D's awareness of seeing those guys take off is also just as important."

It helped that the Bruins got the early lead in Game 5, up 3-0 after just 22 minutes. They didn't have to chase the game or force chances.

"It's been kind of something we do on and off throughout the playoffs," Dougie Hamilton said. "There'll be stretches where you keep turning pucks over and we pay for it, you have to play D-zone and things like that. Just to be able to keep (avoiding the turnovers), I think maybe it helps with a lead as well when you're not down a goal and you're able to make plays.

"You can chip it in and make them make mistakes. Again, hopefully get the first goal and play that same way and have success tomorrow."

The Bruins know better than most how difficult closing out their rivals can be. They just think they'll be fine if they don't deviate from what they've been doing.

"I like the way we've gotten better as a team. I like that we've progressively improved our game," Gregory Campbell said. "We've been fairly strong mentally. Montreal's a tough place to play and we were down 2-1, but we fought our way back and put ourselves in a good position."

Dan Cagen can be reached at 508-626-3848 or dcagen@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanCagen.